London Art News previews art exhibitions in London and reports on anything of special interest in the visual arts worldwide, from ice sculpture to body painting.

Sunday, 9 December 2012

Crystal Skull Lawsuit

Lawsuits, lawsuits, everywhere, and I suspect that lots of the more technical cases are beyond the ken of most judges. The latest lawsuit has been described by the Hollywood Reporter as "one of the most entertaining lawsuits of the year" (CLICK). It concerns the Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull allegedly stolen from under a collapsed Mayan altar in temple ruins in Belize, formerly British Honduras. The myth that this skull was used by high priests to cast death seems to have originated with its "discoverer" Anna Le Guillon Mitchell-Hedges, adopted daughter of British adventurer F.A. Mitchell-Hedges. New Age loonies have added the magic number 13 to the myth. Then Lucasfilm topped that with a ring of alien crystal skulls for Steven Spielberg's splendid hokum Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008). The plaintiff is Dr Jaime Awe, Head of the Institute of Archaeology of Belize. He claims the Mitchell-Hedges Crystal Skull, a replica of which was allegedly used in the film, is a "national treasure" and he is suing Lucasfilm, its new owner Walt Disney Co. and distributor Paramount Pictures for using the skull without permission! The late Anna and her husband refused to have their skull subjected to modern scientific analysis. So its status as a pre-Columbian Mesoamerican treasure is yet to be proved. A similar crystal skull in the British Museum was subjected to scientific analysis. The crystal came from Brazil (nowhere near the Mayan empire). Tool marks show it was made in the 19th Century in Europe, probably in Germany (CLICK). I viewed this skull years ago when it was displayed in the Museum of Mankind, the Department of Ethnography of the British Museum, at 6 Burlington Gardens. It is a beautiful work of art. But it is a fake. Good luck, Dr Awe. Try reading Wikipedia before you waste any more money on lawyers (CLICK).